I have been in a lot of classrooms in various schools here in Guanajuato now, and I am struck by the fact that there are no clocks. In the U.S., it seems that the giant round clock is the centerpiece of each classroom, positioned so that the students and the teachers can all watch the time passing. In general in the U.S., I feel that clocks are everywhere. Here, there is rarely a clock in a public place, and I have not seen one yet in a classroom. It seems somehow symbolic that my own wristwatch broke shortly before we arrived in México in January, and I have been watchless throughout our stay. People joke about the wide span of time that can be signified by the expression ahorita (right now). It is not that there is no schedule here; there is. But time is experienced differently.
No clocks. But plenty of time.
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Funny, we've just been fighting this for our training room... we at least managed to move the clock from the front of the room (where all the "students" just stared at it) to the back of the room where the instructor can at least keep track of whether he's running long or not.
ReplyDeleteNot quite the same as no clocks, but a start...
ahorita--meaning a wide expanse of time--a fine concept
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